Bucs vs. Fins: Meaningless Battle for Florida Preseason Supremacy

You might recall our "Weekend Football" blog column from last year. It was probably the most proudly ignorant thing ever penned about South Florida football anywhere. Well, with the NFL and NCAA regular seasons around the corner, it is time once again to force ourselves to catch football fever.

Basically, we've been ignoring the preseason even though your Miami Dolphins have gone 2-0. That's pretty good, but at this point in the 2007 pre-season, we had the same record and that turned into the worst season ever. Preseasons matter, but not that much.

But tonight's game is special. It's the annual preseason matchup of Florida's two oldest footballing brigades: the Fins and the Tampa Bay Bucs.

Your sports-clueless blogger grew up in a Bucs household, even though we lived closer to Fins territory. The Bucs, who at one point had one of the most shameful histories in all of the NFL, became perennial playoff contenders and eventually the 2002 Super Bowl champs.

This was generally more exciting than being a Fins fan during the same time, when we watched that team, with one of the proudest histories in the NFL ('72, baby!) become bottom feeders ('07 *frowny face*). Not that I didn't like the Fins. I guess if I had to make a top five favorite teams list back then, they'd be included.

Then the Wildcat, Sparano, and Brady's bum knee came along and now I am officially on the Fins bandwagon. At the same time, the Bucs' almost comical late-season collapse occurred, and I pretended I had never heard of those Buccaneers. Because I am shameless like that.

Anyway, the Bucs and their new coach will meet the Fins tonight at 8 in Tampa Bay, to be broadcast on Fox. The game might be more important and indicative of the regular for the Bucs as they try to figure out who will fill their QB slot in the starting lineup.

Most odds makers have the Bucs slightly favored at -2. Which has me slightly wondering the wisdom of my allegiance change, but I won't sweat it to much until the Fins and Bucs meet when it really matters in the regular season.

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